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Lighting thoughts

So I have been battling hair algae. I cleaned the tank Sunday and have just been running blues and haven't noticed the algae. Will just running the blues cause my corals to not grow or any problems to the fish?

You need to get to the real root of the problem and not try and bandaid it by running only blues blues will not provide all the spectrums your corals are used to so in a way yes you will shock them a little it will affect growth it will probably slow down.

top producers of GHA
over feeding-we all do it
phosphate in the system- some rocks are full of it
bad water filters- check with tds meter
equipment not functioning properly ie skimmers not skimmin
the easiest way to get rid of it is macro i use cheateo if your not ripping it in half and throwing away a foot ball size chunk every 2 weeks get diff fuge light 6k metal halide is the best cfl/s are okayish i suppose leds not impressed....

its for coloration only i used to run 2 reefs both with halide one was ushio 6500k and the other phoenix 14k i used to buy large100-200 polyp zoa rocks froma store in parker i would take them home and split them in half one for each tank the stuff in the ushio tank grew 3x as fast as the stuff in the 14k phoenix tank but the corals in the 14k tank looked better as they had alot more color

top producers of GHA
over feeding-we all do it
phosphate in the system- some rocks are full of it
bad water filters- check with tds meter
equipment not functioning properly ie skimmers not skimmin
the easiest way to get rid of it is macro i use cheateo if your not ripping it in half and throwing away a foot ball size chunk every 2 weeks get diff fuge light 6k metal halide is the best cfl/s are okayish i suppose leds not impressed....

It is my frag tank. I have mostly zoas so I don't run a skimmer. I feed the tank every other day. I have chaeteo and throw a bunch away. I am at capacity in the tank with Corals. It is really strange because the algae only grows on a couple plugs here and there. It isn't in the entire tank. I am cycling my second frag tank which will have a skimmer. This is my bandaid until I can get the other tank going well.

you just said your answer........ it only grows on a few plugs those plugs are probably loaded with P04 depends on what they are made out of i have had some before that grew algea like crazy if its a concrete plug it might have some rhyolite in it which has tons of phosphorus

you just said your answer........ it only grows on a few plugs those plugs are probably loaded with P04 depends on what they are made out of i have had some before that grew algea like crazy if its a concrete plug it might have some rhyolite in it which has tons of phosphorus

Interesting. I will watch and if the same plugs get it. I'll cut and glue to others

Never realized any problems running blue only. Well, I guess if I wanted more gha it would be a problem... I recently pulled all but 4 diodes off my white side on my led fixtures to use the same 3 fixtures to double my blue wattage. Worked like a charm and still think I have too much white in there with only 12 10k white diodes

If you don't want to run a skimmer Chad do an algae scrubber. Works better than any macro in my experience. Cfl bulbs in a cheap garage reflector works great for lighting. Plenty of us run cfl or led extra fixtures over the sump with nice low electric bills, no excess heat and excellent plant growth.

Basically just a PVC square base, 2 legs up and a tube across the top. Pump h2o in and it flows out through a slit cut in the bottom of the top tube, down a screen of cross stitch..... Uh..... Screen. It's a simple design. Place the reflectors with 40w equivalent cfl on each side of the screen running 16-18hrs/day. GHA grows on both sides and starves the algae in your display for nutrients.

Basically just a PVC square base, 2 legs up and a tube across the top. Pump h2o in and it flows out through a slit cut in the bottom of the top tube, down a screen of cross stitch..... Uh..... Screen. It's a simple design. Place the reflectors with 40w equivalent cfl on each side of the screen running 16-18hrs/day. GHA grows on both sides and starves the algae in your display for nutrients.

Okay so my thought is that I will make it out of PVC because I assume it needs to be out of the water with just water flowing through it. Is that correct? I will build legs for the bottom and then PVC across with a slit in it. The PVC will then have a mesh connected to it that the water will flow. I hope this is right. Thoughts? Ideas?